ENG-1957 — Page 43

32

HONG KONG ANNUAL REPORT

and to translate them into organized blocks of concrete; the pressure of human beings in the ancient tenements of Hong Kong has been eased. Through building, form has been given to what was previously an inchoate and alarming problem.

With this problem a Special Committee on housing, appointed by the Government in 1956, continues to grapple. At the Committee's suggestion, a Commissioner for Housing has been appointed, to act as the principal executive officer of the Housing Authority and, in addition, to survey all the different factors affecting housing and to co-ordinate action. Also at the Committee's instigation a sample survey of the population has been undertaken by the Department of Economics and Political Science of the University; the results of that survey are now awaited. More dramatic in impact, however, was the Committee's recommendation that land development schemes to make new towns possible should be undertaken with all possible speed. This recom- mendation also has been accepted in principle by the Government and a firm of consulting engineers has been appointed to survey a number of areas in the New Territories and to report on the possibility of providing new land through reclamation. The engineers will also investigate the feasibility of building a new road linking Tsuen Wan, on the south coast, with Tai Po, at the head of Tolo Harbour- itself the possible site of one of the new towns. These new township schemes, if proceeded with, may change not only the appearance of Hong Kong but also the social structure of the community. There has already been much develop- ment in the New Territories during the post-war years through the construction of new main roads, as well as by the building of feeder roads connecting the remoter villages` with the market towns. If the initial surveys are favourable, however, and the new towns come into being, there may follow a difficult period of adjustment and transition while. the former urban dwellers accustom themselves to their new